Jan: Speaking with health professionals – Trust in doctors
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jan
Female
Age at interview: Undisclosed
Number of medicines: 15
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
While Jan believes it is important to pay attention to health professionals, she feels it is ultimately her responsibility to manage her own health.
I, many years ago, was seeing a dermatologist who would only look at spots that I could point out to him, that I was concerned about, and I used to ask him to do what my current dermatologist regularly does, which is give me an all body check over and he would always tell me he was too busy! One day, I insisted and he said, ‘Goodness gracious! Haven't you got somebody at home that can do this for you?’ So, I stopped seeing him.
I went back to my GP. I said I wasn't happy with that particular medico and I started seeing a new one. I think, you know, we've got to take some responsibility and some control of our medications. I think we've got to listen to the advice of our medicos, because they do have the expertise, but I think we also have an experience that's valuable as well and I think it's important that we, I guess, play fair, give them a chance to convince us that what they're suggesting is good for us and then, at the same time, make our own assessment and be prepared to go back and talk about it.
I mean, it's our bodies. We've got to sort of have some control over what's happening to them.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.